Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Redbands in the whitewater

Posted
on Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:07 PM

click to enlarge

Development of a proposed
whitewater kayak park in the Spokane River just below downtown may become more
complicated, as a fisheries survey to be published in March has found the site to
be one of the most robust spawning areas for native redband trout.

Tim Vore, environmental
specialist for Avista, last spring identified several redband spawning nests,
known as redds, in the reach of river between the Monroe Street and Nine Mile
dams. The survey was conducted for the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife as part of Avista’s dam relicensing agreements with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The north bank on the first
curve of the river below Monroe Street, just downstream from the Sandifur
Bridge, was the most active spawning area when surveyed last spring, Vore says.

The proposed whitewater park,
“as I understand it, is literally under and downstream of the Sandifur Bridge,”
Vore says.

Steve Faust, director of
Friends of the Falls, which is seeking to construct a whitewater recreation
park in the High Bridge Park area, says clear information about the location of
spawning gravels and where the native wild trout actually spawn is welcome.

“We are glad to have the data.
It’s data we would need to look at how building the features would
affect the hydraulics of the river, and whether that is good or bad or
indifferent [to fish],” he says.

“It doesn’t preclude [the park]
being built, but it is a challenge. It’s a big challege,” says Mike Aho, a
supervisor with Spokane Parks and Recreation, which will be doing an
environmental impact study with Friends of the Falls.

The spawning areas will loom
large, Faust says. It is certain to come up in the permitting process, he says.

“We don’t know if the spawning
areas would impact [the park] as currently proposed. We’re not sure if it’s
possible to design a project that doesn’t really impact this spawning area.

“We are just starting to deal
with this information and we’re not sure what flexibility we have,” Faust says.
Significant portions of the project’s grant funding is tied to the High Bridge
location, he says.